Poker Words - A Poker Blog

PokerStarts to Buy FullTilt?

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 17:08:00 +0000

Here's a brief article from the Wall Street Journal implying that Poker Stars might be buying FullTilt Poker. I would welcome that as it combines my two favorite poker sites into one that is hopefully run with more integrity. No mention of what happens to the still owed player's funds.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

WSPL Goes to Vegas Game 12

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 02:14:00 +0000

Its official. I'm going to vegas to be participate in one of the $1500 NL Holdem events.

Going into the final tourney of our league, the only way I wouldn't advance to the WSOP is if Shane won and I finished in fifth place or worse. That would tie us for the points total and I think he would have ended up winning on the second or third tie breaker.

I got off to a good start though and he got short stacked fairly early. He hovered around 5-10 BB for a while, winning just enough pots to stay alive, but ultimatly he couldn't keep up. I even got to be the one to deliver the final blow.

I managed to finish in second place, with Rich avenging his last heads up battle with me. He went in as th chip leader, and increased his lead a little before I flopped two pair to his straight.

Here are the final standings for the league. Smack and I will be playin in the $1500 event on June 23rd.

Week 12

Rich
Me
Smack
Archie
Cookie
Shane
Jason
Aaron
Noah

Totals

Smack (104 Points)
Me (98 Points)
Shane (73 Points)
Rich (72 Points)
Archie (72 Points)
Cookie (71 Points)
Aaron (64 Points)
Noah (54 Points)
Jason (48 Points)

Totals minus the worst two games

Smack (102 Points)
Me (88 Points)
Shane (71 Points)
Rich (71 Points)
Cookie (67 Points)
Archie (67 Points)
Aaron (61 Points)
Noah (52 Points)
Jason (47 Points)

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

WSPL Goes to Vegas Game 11

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 03:44:00 +0000

Game 11 started off great for me. I'm in solid second place in the standings so all I have to do is make sure the same person doesn't win the last two games to guarantee my making it to the WSOP.

Noah got off to a huge chip lead and used it to bully the table. That was fine by me because he is already mathematically eliminated from a first or second place overall finish. He knocked out Rich in a hand which probably saved me a bunch. I flopped an open ended straight draw with TJo, three handed with Noah and Rich. I checked, Noah bet and Rich pushed all-in. I got out. Noah had top pair, Rich also had TJo. He failed to complete the straight and went out first, eliminating himself from contention.

Aaron goes out shortly after that to also get eliminated. Aaron suffered a few bad beats during the tourney, both involving pocket Jacks. Lets just say he was not happy.

The other players I still need to worry about at this point are Cookie, Shane and Archie. Archie and I are both doing pretty well, Cookie and Shane are going to get blinded out any moment.

A few hands later I have AA in the big blind, and Archie raises preflop to $T240. I pop it up to T$600 and he calls. The flop is Q high. I check, hoping Archie will try to steal the pot. He has about as many chips as the are in the pot, I have about $T1000 more. He goes all in. It was exactly as I would have drawn it up had I been able to plan this hand. There is no way he bets all in if he thinks he's ahead, and if he doesn't think he is ahead, then I have dominated. I insta-call. Except instead of clicking the call button I click the fold button.

I could have just taken the chip lead and knocked out one of the contenders for my Vegas spot all in one move. Instead, I gave him a ton of chips and crippled myself.

A few hands later Archie doubles up again, through Noah when Archie rivers a full house while Noah catches his straight. Noah goes out soon there after. The good news is there are only four of us left, meaning I pick up another point. The bad news is Shane and Archie have huge chip stacks. Smack is of course still hanging around and I am in all-in or fold mode.

I last a few hands before pushing with pocket snowmen. Shane calls with KQ and proceeds to flop two pair, so I'm out in fourth place.

Archie goes out when he and Smack go all-in pre flop. Archie has 99, Smack 44. Smack spikes a four on the flop. Archie gets a nine on the turn and the Smack gets the case for on the river. Archie is now also eliminated, meaning only Shane has a chance to catch me. Smack of coarse is running away with this.

The heads up battle between Shane and Smack goes on for quite a while, but ultimately, Smack comes out ahead.

Here are the standings after week 11.

Week 11:

Smack
Shane
Archie
Me
Noah
Jason
Cookie
Aaron
Rich

Totals after week 11:

Smack (96 Points)
Me (87)
Shane (69)
Cookie (66)
Archie (66)
Aaron (62)
Rich (57)
Noah (53)
Jason (45)

Totals minus their worst two performances (Its been a long weekend so there is a chance my math is off here);

Smack (94 Points)
Me (77)
Shane (67)
Cookie (62)
Archie (61)
Aaron (57)
Rich (54)
Noah (52)
Jason (44)

The worst I can do is 82 points since right now one of my two worst is a five pointer. The best Shane can do is 82 points, if he wins next week. We haven't discussed tie breaker scenarios, but I think I my overall score should be enough to beat him, or maybe we play heads up, in which case I'm reasonable confident I'll win.

The last game is scheduled for tomorrow so we'll know then.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

WSPL Goes to Vegas Game 10

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 02:50:00 +0000

I'm goin' to Veeeegas
I'm goin' to Veeeegas.

Ok its not definite yet, but after this week's game it's looking pretty likely. Noah finally cashed this week taking first place, and I finished in second. Which means I increased my lead on the rest of the pack and makes it very difficult for anyone else to catch up. It will take cashing in both of the remaining events and me finishing worse than fifth in both for any one else to have a chance.

I'm getting ahead of myself though.

Back to the action:

Things went slowly this game. I think especially for me and possibly others that the format of the event has a lot to do with it. I knew that I was comfortably in second place overall, and as long as I could outlast some of my nearest competitors, and/or finish above my previous worst scores of 5 points, I'll be that much closer to winning the WSOP entry. That fact coupled with the absolutely abysmal cards that I got meant that I didn't play very many hands. There was no reason for me to risk chips with anything less than a premium hand. This enrages Aaron who really wants me to go out early as he realizes that I'm standing between him and a WSOP entry. That alone makes folding hand after hand somewhat enjoyable.

As a result of my super tight play, the few hands I did get into resulted in me winning and allowed me to stay a little bit ahead of the average chip stack. I didn't blow a lot of chips on speculative hands as I might often do.

Our points leader Smack had a rough night. He plays very aggressively and if he doens't at least get some cards to back up his play he can find himself in trouble pretty quickly. He was forced in to all-in or nothing mode fairly early, and while he managed to get all-in with the best hand, Noah hit a runner runner straight to knock him out.

After that, no one was eliminated for quite a while. An absurdly long time There was a lot of back and forth plays, and a three players, Archie, Rich and Jason, struggling to keep their heads above water. The blinds would eat away at their short stacks, and they would finally make a move and steal some blinds or win a small all-in to start the cycle over again. They hung around for a long time before luck finally caught up with them.

I really think PokerStars wanted me to win this one though. Like I said earlier I got horrendous cards. However, most of the time, and way more often than usual, had I played those cards I would have flopped a monster. Not only that, it would have been a monster that no one would have seen coming, because who plays 53 off under the gun? Of course I was playing exceptionally tight so it was all for naught.

Noah was getting cards this game, and for once not getting them cracked. He was the big stack for most of the tourney and used it to effectively bully the rest of the table. Eventually it came down to just us two. He had me by 5 or 6 to one, but his luck finally started to wear out. We battled for quite a while and I whittled down his lead when he finally got me all in. I had a pair of sixes, he had wired tens. I congratulated him on a good game and was about to log out when I rivered a third six to nearly cripple him. Like I said, PokerStars wants me to win.

We battled back and forth for a while longer still. I think this had to be the longest heads up battle of the season. Finally Noah is able to win a few large sized pots and suddenly I'm on death's door again. I don't remember what the final hand was, but he managed to knock me out. It was late I was content with a second place finish and a non-contender ahead of me so the final hand didn't seam to be worth remembering.

Here are the current standings.

Week 10:

Noah
Me
Aaron
Shane
Jason
Archie
Rich
Cooke
Smack

Totals:

Smack (81 Points)
Me (81)
Cookie (63)
Aaron (60)
Shane (58)
Archie (58)
Rich (56)
Noah (48)
Jason (41)

Total (minus worst two)

Smack (79)
Me (71)
Cookie (59)
Aaron (57)
Shane (56)
Rich (54)
Archie (53)
Noah (47)
Jason (40)

The interesting thing here is that the totals section represents the worst case scenario for each player. If, for some reason someone doesn't play the next two events and gets 0 points, what they currently have in the totals section will be their final score. This means the worst I can do is 81 points. Looking at it from the other side, the best someone can do is their total minus the worst two + 30. This means even if Noah or Jason win the next two, they can't catch me, or Smack.

For Archie to qualify, he will need to win the next two and then have me finish no better than fourth.
Rich also has to win the next two. He can tie me if I finish third and fifth or worse, or beat me if I do worse than that.
With a first and second place finish, and me not doing better than fifth, Aaron or Shane could still go.
Cookie can tie me with two second place finishes and me not doing better than fifth.

I think that except for Smack and myself, whoever doesn't win the next event is eliminated. I think all Smack has to do is not finish last in both of the next games and he is in. Even if he does finish in last he is still probably in.

Now we'll have to see how my wife feels about me ditching her with an infant for 3-4 days so I can go play poker. Maybe if I promise to buy her something nice with my winnings she'll let me go. Otherwise I'll have pick a stand in. My instincts for fill in would be Archie and then Noah, but neither of them have done very well in this format so I'm not so sure. Maybe the live format suits them better.

No game next week since Archie will be out of town, but we're thinking of doing two the following week so that we can finish up the season and figure out which event we are going to play this summer, and start making travel plans.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

WSPL Goes to Vegas Game 9

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 04:31:00 +0000

The summary is going to be short this week. I was way tired and since the weather was so nice I was also having an allergy attack during the entire tournament. I don't think it really effected the outcome or my play, just my ability to recall much of what happened.

Rich played really well. He was to my left and either had a really good read on me, or just got crazy good cards the entire time. Every time I tried to steal a pot, or even if I thought I might be ahead he would raise me. He was the big stack at the table by a long shot so it was tough to fire back when I could only beat a bluff.

Jason hit quads again. He had wired queens and flopped two more. Even better he managed to get Aaron to go all in with it.

Smack was short stacked early on, but managed to hang around long enough to build up a decent stack and ultimately finish in second place. I partially blame Rich for this because he accidentally created the tournament with $T2000 starting chips instead of the usual $T1500. I think with only $T1500 Smack would have busted out. Its probably better for me that he was in though. At this point I am conceding that he is going to take one of the two top spots so any points he gets are points the people chasing me don't get.

Here's the results from week 9

Rich
Smack
Archie
Me
Noah
Cookie
Jason
Aaron
Shane

Totals

Smack (80 Points)
Me (70)
Cookie (61)
Archie (54)
Rich (53)
Shane(52)
Aaron(52)
Jason (36)
Noah (33)

Totals after removing the worst two results

Smack (75)
Me (60)
Cookie (55)
Rich (51)
Shane (50)
Archie (49)
Aaron (49)
Jason (35)
Noah (32)

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

WSPL Goes to Vegas Game 8

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 04:15:00 +0000

I think consensus in our group, even amongst those players that aren't doing so well is that the home game league set up is a blast. Its too bad you can't play for real money anymore. None the less, if you have a group of friends who you'd like to play with on a regular basis, and can find someone you trust to be the treasurer, I would highly recommend setting up one of these leagues.

That being said, this week was a kind of boring for me. I was a little over tired and didn't get great cards so I ended up just hanging around for a while until I finally bled out in fifth place.

I registered for the tourney earlier in the week from a different computer than what I usually use to play on. For some reason I couldn't convince Poker Stars that I had signed out on that computer so it wouldn't let me play from my office computer. I ended up having to remote desktop to my other machine to play. It was mildly annoying, but ultimately not a big deal. Since I showed up as the tourney was starting and kept logging in and out to get the client running on my office computer I missed half of the first blind level. I do remember getting pocket rockets in the first hand and over betting because I was flustered to take down a huge $T15 pot.

Some other confusion, our schedule master Rich had decided to increase the starting chip count from $T1500 to $T2000. He also decided to register and not show up. I was able to steal his blinds a lot in the first round when they were cheap, but once we merged tables I had Smack to my right and the Noah to his right. There were very few hands where I was able to act before the pot had been raised. Couple that with my sub par cards and as I mentioned earlier, I didn't do so well.

There were a couple of misbets that hurt some people and were rather amusing at the time. In one hand Archie had considered raising, moving the bet slider, then changed his mind and decided to fold. He accidentally clicked the bet button though, and after using almost all of his time back Aaron decides to call and takes down a huge pot. Later on with blinds at $T30/60, Noah tries to make a pre-flop raise to $T180 under the gun. His finger slips off the 8 key though and he hits $T1809 instead. Everyone folds until Shane in the big blind. Shane calls and takes down the hand on the flop. I think he had pocket queens.

For most of the tournament I was just hoping to last long enough to beat Rich. We decided that he should get zero points for not showing up, but just in case, I wanted to make sure I at least finished ahead of him. I just barely lasted longer than him.

Here's the results from this week's game:

Shane
Smack
Aaron
Noah
Me
Jason
Archie
Cookie
Rich (0 Points - No Show)

I think its a fight for the second spot now as I don't see anyone catching Smack. Cookie going out first helps me a lot, and Aaron not winning was a good thing for me.

Totals after week 8

Smack (69 Points)
Me (64)
Cookie (57)
Shane(51)
Aaron (50)
Archie (46)
Rich (38)
Jason (33)
Noah (28)

Totals after dropping the worst two games

Smack (64)
Me (54)
Cookie (51)
Shane (49)
Aaron (47)
Archie(41)
Rich (36)
Jason (32)
Noah (27)

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Zoom Poker

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 17:14:00 +0000

A couple years ago Full Tilt poker came up with a brilliant idea. At least I assume it was them, I didn't see it anywhere else. (And no it wasn't accepting millions of dollars worth of player's funds and not returning it)

Full Tilt had rush poker. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it works like a normal cash game, except when you fold a hand you are immediately dealt a new hand with new opponents and a new table. Now you don't have to sit there folding for an hour because you can't get any good cards, you just fold and go the the next hand without sitting other players playing the entire hand. Constant action makes it more exciting for the player and much more lucrative for the poker room. The only downside I see to the format is that you can't build up a table image or get readings on your opponent.

I really enjoyed the format. I'm not much of cash game player, but when I did play this was my preferred method.

Well, Poker Stars has now come out with a similar game which they are calling Zoom Poker. I haven't played it since those of us in the US can't have real money accounts anymore, but if I were in Europe, I'd be all over it.

Zoom poker is in beta now. I'm not sure if it is up on the real money site, but if you have an account there, keep and eye out for it.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

WSPL Goes to Vegas Game 7

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 05:08:00 +0000

Into the second half of the season we go. I didn't take notes tonight because not a lot happened to early on, and I didn't feel like I was going to last long. Also, I'm lazy.

I managed to find myself all in a lot this tournament, and more often than not, I got in while behind. A fortunate combinations of suckouts, when I needed them, and a bigger chip size than my opponent allowed me to stay alive for quite a while, despite my efforts to the contrary.

Not a lot of cards for me early on, once again. I won a few small pots without much of a fight, but that was it. My first mistake comes in the second or third blind level. Smack raises, as he does just about every hand, and I call with big slick. Noah then reraises and Smack bows out. I'm thinking Noah has a strong ace, or maybe queens or jacks. Aces and Kings are certainly reasonable here, but I convince myself that he would not be so eager to push people out of the hand with those cards. I reraise all in, thinking I can get him to fold the range I have him in. Terrible read on my part. He turns over aces. He obviously doesn't want his aces cracked going against two players so his raise there is the obvious play in hind site. Especially since he's been running into some terrible luck for this season.

That knocks me down to around $T500 chips which has me thinking I'm going to be using my first drop game.

Fortunately Smack loves to raise with just about any connected hand. He often ends up betting enough to force a small stack to raise all-in and obligates him to call. He usually starts off behind in these cases. I'm able to double up through him. Aaron and Shane are not so lucky as they go out first and second. Aaron rage quits from teamspeak almost immediately after losing the hand. I'm fairly certain he's still on tilt.

I use Smacks donation to hang around while everyone else eliminates themselves. I don't remember anything else real exciting happening for me for a while. I'm pretty sure I sucked out a couple of times, but I don't remember how, or who I was against in the hand.

Noah continues his unlucky streak when he flops two pair against Cookie's pocket kings. The river pairs the board though and counterfeits Noah's hand, knocking him out. He is also probably still on tilt from that.

I manage to survive to three players when my luck catches up with me. I make a pre-flop reraise all in with pocket jacks, and Archie calls me with AK and pairs his ace on the flop. After that I'm in all-in or fold mode, and Archie catches me again.

Archie has a huge chip lead against Smack, which is good, because Smack is going to overtake me in the points. If Archie wins it won't be as bad. I wasn't paying a lot of attention to the heads up match, but Smack quickly turns things around and dispatches with Archie.

Here are the current standings. Three of us are pulling away from the pack, but I think most people are still reasonably in the hunt.

Week 7 Results

Smack
Archie
Me
Jason
Rich
Cookie
Noah
Shane
Aaron

Total Points

Me (59 Points)
Smack (58)
Cookie (55)
Archie (43)
Aaron (42)
Rich (38)
Shane (36)
Jason (29)
Noah (22)

Total Points (After dropping their worst two)

Smack (53)
Me (49)
Cookie (47)
Aaron (39)
Archie (37)
Shane (34)
Rich (33)
Jason (28)
Noah (21)

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

WSPL Goes to Vegas Game 6

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 04:27:00 +0000

I don't think game 6 could have gone any better if I had stacked the deck before hand. Everything seemed to fall into place in the exact perfect outcome that I needed.

To start things off, two of the point leaders, Aaron and Smack get crippled by losing big hands. I didn't see what happened to Smack, I think he got wired queens cracked. Aaron lost on a board showing three jacks. He mucked his cards when Rich turned over a pair of tens. I'm thinking Aaron had an ace and was hoping high card would be good, or maybe he paired something on the board. Regardless he now has only a couple hundred chips and we aren't even out of the first blind level yet. Despite winning the previous two games, he is not invincible.

Smack goes out first which is perfect for me. He's the player I fear most at the table, and he was a top contender for points.    Aaron goes in to super tight fold or all in mode. I think the only cards he's even willing to push with are AK, or high pairs. He's obviously trying to hold on as long as he can in hopes of picking up a couple extra points.    Since he's also in contention for the points lead, I feel like I have to beat him this game, especially since he in so much trouble all ready. Not that my cards helped at all, but I find myself tightening up considerably, not willing to take any unnecessary risks as long as Aaron is still around

My cards are pretty bad for most of this tournament. The only decent hand I get in the first have is a pair queens, which get cracked when I push Shane all in. He manages to hit a flush with his KJo.

Noah has been having a terrible season so far. I would have normally put him as one of the favorites to finish in the lead, but he hasn't done anything. tonight wasn't really his fault though. He ends up going all in against Cookie after a flop of KKA, and rags on the turn and river. Noah had KJ, and was feeling pretty confident up until Cookie's cards were revealed and he shows AK, leaving Noah with 23 chips left to try to cover the $T50 big blind.

Aaron is still hanging around though. He hasn't played a hand in four or five orbits when suddenly he wakes up with cards. AK lets him double up when Jason calls. He doubles up again shortly after that and before you know it he has a decent chip stack again.

Unfortunately for him, his switch to a more aggressive style gets him into trouble almost immediately after he starts bragging about his comeback. He decides to raise,and call a reraise with KJo and runs into AK. So after all that work he still goes out third.

My cards are still terrible. I'm folding a ton, not really feeling confident, just hoping to stay alive. I keep stealing Jason's big blind, until he says that one of these times he'll have hand. I retort that one of these times I'll have a hand too.   Originally I'm thinking I'll put him on tilt by insinuating that I've been bluffing every time, but then I start over thinking it and now I'm afraid to bet because I think he'll think I'm bluffing and he'll be more likely to push back. So I kind of screwed myself.

I end up getting quite a bit lucky, using Cookie's tricks against him. I have T2 and try to steal his blinds. The flop is J27 and I push all in thinking he just called my pre-flop raise because he's stubborn. Even if he ha a hand, he probably didn't have a jack right? Wrong. He has JT and I'm down to two outs. Which I hit on the river.

And then, my cards start getting a lot better. AK and KK in sequential hands move me from the short stack to a comfortable size. I then double up through Rich on a hand I don't think I played very well I had J5 in a family pot with the four remaining players. The flop is J5X all hearts. I push all in here, for about 3x pot. My thinking is that chances are someone has a heart, and I don't want them even thinking about chasing the flush. I'm not sure if this was the right play or not. If someone already had a flush then I just knocked myself out. Although I don't know how I can both bet enough to figure out if someone has the flush while pushing out the chasers, without committing all of my chips. It worked out okay though because Rich called with a Q5. I think the queen was a heart but I don't recall for certain. He missed the straight either way.

Shortly after that I have pocket queens again. Pocket queens have gotten cracked at least twice today so I'm a little nervous. Its Jason's big blind though, so perhaps the talk of stealing earlier will pay off. I make my standard pre-flop raise and he calls. The flop is XQQ. One of the areas I think I need to work on is value betting, and maximizing my winnings when I know I'm ahead. I'm often content to bet big and take the pot right away rather than let someone draw out on me. I probably save myself some bad beats by doing this, but I also leave chips on the table. I have the absolute nuts here so I need to slow down.

Jason plays right into my hands by raising my small bet, then calling my increasingly large bets on the turn and river. He grudgingly calls on the river saying that he doesn't think I have the queen. Too bad for him, I have two.

I got lucky against Cookie again. I managed to forget the exact hand, but it involved me catching a flush on the river to come from way behind. I think I tried to steal his blind originally and he reraised all-in, giving me pot odds to call.

I'm glad Cookie went out before Rich because Cookie was in the points lead, but I'm not thrilled to be playing Rich heads up. He still plays regularly online, and he plays heads up cash games, so this should be his strength. And maybe it would have been if I didn't get get crazy good cards. Not that my hands started out all that great, but both of bet about 3x BB no matter what pre-flop. I had the chip lead so I called his bet every time, and he was forced to fold some on occasion. The flops were fantastic for me. I couldn't miss.   I think two pair was the worst hand I had by the time we showed down, or he folded.

Ultimately I got him all in with 69s and rivered a flush. He was not happy, but he had so few chips I would have called with almost anything.   Sometimes you need a little luck to help you out.

Here are the standings so far:

Week 6:

Me
Rich
Cookie
Jason
Shane
Archie
Aaron
Noah
Smack

Total Points

Cookie (51)
Me (51)
Smack (43)
Aaron (41)
Shane (34)
Rich (33)
Archie (32)
Jason (23)
Noah (19)

Total Points (worst two scores thrown out)

Cookie (42)
Me (41)
Smack (38)
Aaron (36)
Shane (32)
Rich (28)
Archie (26)
Jason (22)
Noah (18)

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

WSPL Goes to Vegas Game 5

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 01:54:00 +0000

Almost halfway through the season.

Game 5 was interesting. I thought I played pretty well, but the more I think about, the more angry I am with the end result.

I didn't get very many good cards this game. I was mostly content to let everyone else fight amongst themselves while I jumped in to very few pots. When I did get premium hands, I was fortunate enough to have people bet into me big. I had pocket kings a couple of times and had people raise and reraise before it even got to me, which worked out well.

I also won a huge pot towards the mid to late stages of the game when everyone limped in preflop with me and my K3o in the small blind. The flop was 332 with two hearts. I made a small bet, hoping to build the pot and not wanting people to draw to a flush for free. Cookie raises me to a half pot sized bet. There are a bunch of folds and the Noah re-raises about 3x pot. I went all in, and after much deliberation Noah folds, giving me the chip lead and crippling him. He was trying to push Cookie out of the pot, and didn't expect me to be involved at all.

I more or less have the chip lead from that point on. I'm able to bully some of the other players, for a while, and finally when Cookie gets tired of it and fires back, I manage to flop a set to knock him out.

At that point there are four of us left, myself with aver 7K in chips, Aaron with between 2k and 3k, Shane with under 1K and Smack with just over 2K. At that point I'm assuming it is only a matter of time for Shane. I think Smack is probably the best player in our group, and also the only one left that has more points than me, so I'm hoping to bust him.

Alas it is not to be. I went against my better judgement and call a pre-flop all-in from him with KQs. I was hoping he was getting desperate and pushing with any face card and maybe I could catch him. Unfortunately, he has AQ and doubles up. I'm still in the lead, but I do the same thing with Shane a few hands later. Then Aaron starts calling and raising my bets and suddenly I'm on the defensive.

I should make a note here that my daughter is not even two weeks old, and sometime after I crippled Noah and before I knocked out Cookie, she had a meltdown, and so did my wife who was hoping to take a nap during this time. So I had to step in rescue them. In an effort to keep my daughter from crying I'm bouncing and rocking in the chair, or pacing back and forth two feet in front of my computer, because that's all the slack I have on my headphones. Its also really hard to do anything other than call or make a standard raise, because to get to the number pad on my keyboard I have to shift her in my hands, which wakes her up and restarts the screaming at the top of the lungs process.

Not that I'm making excuses, because I made some dumb plays that I knew I shouldn't have and Aaron was playing well to take most of my chips. That being said, there were a number of bets I made because they were easier than making the bet I would normally have made. For example I managed to draw to a straight against Smack when neither of us really seemed to want the pot. He made a small bet on the river and rather than raising I just called and one a smaller pot than I could have had. It was possible that he hit a runner-runner flush which is what I used to justify my laziness at the time, but I could have done better.

I also think I played more hands than I normally would have at the end because she was starting to fuss and I knew she wouldn't hold out much longer no matter what I did.

As I said before, the longer I think about it, the angrier I am that I didn't win this one. I went out in fourth. There's no way I should have let Shane or Smack beat me as bad of shape as they were in. And I think I can bear Aaron heads up 9 out of 10 games. Instead Aaron took first and Smack second. Aaron has now won two in a row and both he and Smack are ahead of me.

Here's the results so far.

Game 5:

Aaron
Smack
Shane
Me
Cookie
Archie
Rich
Jason
Noah

Totals

Cookie (43 Points)
Smack (42 Points)
Aaron (38 Points)
Me (36 Points)
Shane (29 Points)
Archie (28 Points)
Rich (22 Points)
Jason (17 Points)
Noah (17 Points)

Totals after removing our worst two games

Cookie (34 Points)
Smack (34 Points)
Aaron (33 Points)
Shane (27 Points)
Me (26 Points)
Archie (22 Points)
Rich (17 Points)
Jason (16 Points)
Noah (16 Points)

Its a three way race at this point. Shane and I can easily get back into it with a good performance next week, and I wouldn't count Archie out either. The other three are going to need to win soon before they get too much further behind.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

WSPL Goes to Vegas Game 4

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 04:30:00 +0000

Game four is a little more lethargic than our previous games. Two players couldn't make it, Noah and Jason. The rest of us either weren't getting cards, or learned to fold before getting sucked out on the river.

The most interesting thing for most of the game was that Cookie decided to make all his bets in powers of two. He'd bet 64,128, 256, 512 and 1024.

I tried to get cute on few hands early and found myself short stacked. I was able to double up with pocket threes, against Smacks AQ. He hit a K on the flop and a 10 on the turn, but I rivered another three to stay alive. I built back up to an average to slightly above average stack after that.

Down to 5 players I get 99 under the gun and raise, getting Cookie to call. The flop is A78. I bet hoping he doesn't have the ace, and he calls. The turn is ten and we both check. The river is Jack to complete my straight. He about the pot, just like I was hoping he would and I push all in. He turns over KQ for the bettter straight, and I'm out in fifth out of seven that actually showed up.

The good news is that players I fear most don't make the top three. Aaron and Shane are both at the bottom, so them getting a bunch of points doesn't matter, and while Cookie is in the lead, I don't think he can keep it up over a season's worth of games. Things are getting interested again.

Here's the current standings.

Week 4

Aaron
Cookie
Shane
Archie
Me
Smack
Rich
Noah (DNP)
Jason (DNP)

Standings

Cookie (38 Points)
Smack (31 Points)
Me (30 Points)
Archie (24 Points)
Aaron (23 Points)
Shane (21 Points)
Rich (19 Points)
Noah (16 Points)
Jason (15 Points)

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

WSPL Goes to Vegas Game 3

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 01:33:00 +0000

If only I had been able to convince people to start on an online home game years ago think of how much fun we could have had, and how much more poker we could have enjoyed. And also how much more of our money would be tied up in online gambling purgatory. Just kidding. Poker Stars actually did a decent job of refunding player's money. Not like another one of my former favorite sites.

I'm defiantly getting more comfortable with this format. Some of it just shaking of the rust, and it certainly didn't hurt that I won last game, but I'm at a point now where I don't worry that I'm up against pretty good players and that I could be getting trapped on any given hand. I'm able to loosen up and play more aggressively and I've got decent reads on most my fellow players where I generally know where I am in a hand.

The table is fairly passive again. People are fairly tentative and I think concerned about where they go out since there are points riding on it. I think I'm able to use that to my advantage as I steal a lot of pots early on and I get to see a lot of free pots from the BB, many of which I hit. I'll post the stats later on, but of the 26 hands I played from either blind, I saw 17 flops.

I may have to rethink my stance on online poker being rigged. We saw so many hands where the player behind would spike his 1-4 outer on the river to stay alive that it was ridiculous. I think the stats for going all-in while behind went 20-2 for the guy behind. The two of course were hands that I lost, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The first crazy hand came about a half hour in. Shane and Cookie were the two short stacks at the table and see a flop of AAA. Shane goes all-in with a pair of jacks, and Cookie calls with QK. He hits a K on the river to knock Shane out.

I recorded a number of other bad beat hands, but you get the point. I'll spare you the details. Now that I think about it though I don't think I was involved on either end of a bad beat hand.

I played pretty well for most of the tourney. As I mentioned earlier I was able to steal a lot of pots and take advantage of most people playing very cautiously. I was the chip leader, or close to it for the majority of the time.

My demise came about an hour into the tourney. There were five of us left and I was in the small blind with K4o. Its folded to me and I just call. The flop is KJ8 and I lead out. Noah, in the BB raises. At this point I think I've probably got the best hand. I hit top pair, the chances that he actually has a better king, or two pair are pretty slim. I figure he thinks I'm trying to push him off the pot so I reraise, and surprisingly he calls.

The turn is a rag, and I bet again. He calls. The river doesn't help either. I'm not real confident in my hand anymore, but I have to bet. If I don't, then I have to fold to any bet that he makes, and while I'm concerned I still think I have the best hand. I bet as little as I think I can get away with where he won't be tempted to reraise unless he has definitely has me beat, but also enough that he might fold something like KT. It doesn't matter. He had the call anything box checked because he had pocket aces. He was scared that I had hit a set.

That hand knocked be back to the short stack status, with about as many chips as we started the tourney with.

Shortly thereafter is a similar situation. I have J7 in the small blind and hit a flop of AJ8. BB raises my post flop bet all in and I think to myself that he can't possibly have an ace again. But he does, and I'm out in fifth.

I was watching the game stats throughout, surprised at the number of hands I played, and my success rate with those hands. Too bad it only takes one failed hand to knock you out. Here's the final stats for me, about an hour into the tourney, going out in fifth out of nine.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 78 hands and saw flop:
- 9 out of 13 times while in big blind (69%)
- 8 out of 13 times while in small blind (61%)
- 4 out of 52 times in other positions (7%)
- a total of 21 out of 78 (26%)
Pots won at showdown - 2 of 4 (50%)
Pots won without showdown - 16

And here are the results from last tourney.

Smack
Archie
Rich
Noah
Me
Cookie
Jason
Shane
Aaron

Only the top two win cash and so far we have had 6 different players cash. the overall standings are also close, with the three people who have one a game at the top.

Cookie - 27 Points
Smack - 27 Points
Me - 25 Points
Archie - 18 Points
Noah - 16 Points
Rich - 16 Points
Jason -15 Points
Shane - 13 Points
Aaron - 8 points

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

WSPL Goes to Vegas Game 2

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 02:57:00 +0000

I emailed PokerStars Customer support after our table configuration issues from last week. They basically said that the tournaments were modeled after the Multi-Table Tournament format, and they will take our issues under advisement we are basically SOL.

Or plan to trick the software is as follows. Eight people register and get seated at one table. Once the first hand is dealt, the ninth person registers and gets put at the same table. Ta-da: Single table tournament. Take that PokerStars.

And we just might have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling programmers. After the first hand it moved Noah to another table all by himself. After the next hand Archie got pulled. And so on until we were back to the four/five handed two table format that we were trying to avoid.    Oh well.

Poker wise things started off this game just like they ended last game. Cookie announced that he was going to be using his iPad to remote desktop to his computer to play so that he could watch the end of the Giants/Niners playoff game. Since he wasn't paying attention he manages to turn his 86o into a set of sizes on the river to take down a decent sized pot in the first hand.

This game is much slower and more conservative than the last. There are a lot of 5 players limping into a pot type hands, and not too many raise/reraise preflop.    After a half an hour no one has been eliminated. Aaron is short stacked, all the way down to $T300 and change, but he's able to double up a couple of times then steal some pots and before you know it he's slightly above average with over $T1700

I should warn you at this point that my recollection of hands may not be 100% accurate. Apparently for play money games they don't keep a hand history so I can't go back to check exactly what happened. I can't even go back to see what happened a few hands ago, so as I'm writing notes I'm missing the specifics of many hands.

Here are some of the hand highlights that I was able to remember.

Shane, last games runner up was this weeks first victim. Of coarse it came at the hands of Cookie. There was a ragged looking all heart flop followed by non hearts on the turn and river. I don't recall exactly how the betting went, but Shane was a little short stacked going in, and was all-in by the time the hand was over. Shane had managed to get two pair, but Cookie had flopped a 9 high flush to take him down.

After building his chips stack to a respectable size Aaron was back on a downswing. He limped into a pot after Jason and I, and followed by maybe one or two other players. I have A9o. I was planning on raising, but since Jason limped ahead of me I though maybe I'd just tag along and see what happened.   The flop was 2d9h3d and I had top pair. Jason bets and at this point I figure I'm probably good with top pair top kicker. I don't like the flush draw though, especially with so many players in the pot so I raise it up big. Aaron thinks about it for a while, and pushes all in and it folds back to me. Luckily for me, and unfortunately for Aaron, he didn't have enough chips to push me out. His all in was little more than twice my bet, and I have enough chips behind that even if I lose this pot I'm in fine shape. I call and he turns over Ad5d.   I manage to dodge another diamond or four and Aaron is knocked out in 7th place.

I win another big pot shortly thereafter against Noah. I look down to see a pair of aces and am delighted when I get him to call my preflop raise. The flop is 5x5 where X is garbage. A couple of bets and raises, and the turn is a King. Too bad for me but that scares Noah away. He claims he had a pair of jacks. Still it was hug pot and I'm not comfortably near the chip lead.

At this point I remember what is was like to in a grove. I'm able to start playing almost any two cards, confident that I can push someone out of a hand if I want, or that I can fold a big pot if I need to without crippling myself.

Cookie has been largely silent. I'm thinking that he lost his remote desktop connection and just doesn't realize it yet. Much to Noah's chagrin he is in fact still playing and still hasn't used up all his luck. Noah gets all-in preflop against him, Noah's AK vs Cookies TT. Noah flops an ace. Before he can celebrate however Cookie catches a third ten on the river and suddenly we are down to three.

At this point Cookie's luck finally does run out as it is Jason's turn to some completely unexpected set. Cookie isn't used to not having the best hand, so he repeatedly pays Jason off just to see what he had. Eventually Jason prevails and now its just him and me.

Jason's seems to be a decent player, but I get the feeling he doesn't have a lot of heads up experience. He tends to call every hand preflop while I'm raising every time. He's then forced to fold to my bets on the flop, because he hasn't done much to take control of the hand. On the few cases when he does raise I know to tread lightly. Overall he's just way too conservative and I'm able to take advantage of it.

Even the hands I don't have a good feeling about go my way. There are a few where we check or min-bet to the river where I end up having just slightly better rags than him.

We both started at about $T6700 chips and I eventually to $T12500 : $T2500. He starts push all in a little more often, but I'm content to let him take those pots rather than risk a double up. I can wait him out. I don't have to wait long as shortly thereafter he preflop raises in to my pocket cowboys. I reraise and he pushes and we're all in. He has AJ so I'm looking pretty good. Especially when a King is the first card on the flop. So I take down game number two. Woot.

Here are the results from game two and the new standings:

Game 2:

Me
Jason
Cookie
Noah
Archie
Smack
Aaron
Rich
Shane

Current League Standings:

Cookie - 23 Points
Me - 20 Points
Shane - 12 Points
Jason - 12 Points
Smack - 12 Points
Noah - 10 Points
Rich - 8 Points
Archie - 7 Points
Aaron - 6 Points

Game Three is scheduled for next week.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

WSPL Goes To Vegas Game 1

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 04:35:00 +0000

After much debate about rules and formatting and costs and profit distribution, and who the hell is going to be our ninth player we actually managed to get this thing started.

I may have left out a few details in my last post as I was writing it while trying to get everyone signed up for the league at the very last minute. The short version is this. We have 9 players each contributing $600 to the league. Of that $3000 will go to entry fees for two people to a $1500 event at this year's WSOP. The remaining cash will be used to pay out the winner and second place finisher of each weekly tournament. We did this so that people that get eliminated will still be motivated to try in the final weeks of the league.

Game one did not exactly go smoothly. Our first problem is that Our ninth player got added at the last minute. He was getting off work as the game was starting, the email for the league sends him to the .com site, but we're in the US, so we can only use .net now, yadda yadda yadda and he isn't able to register until just after the tournament starts. Since he was so close, and a last minute addition to the league we gave him a break and decided to start the tourney over in 10 minutes.

10 minutes later and everyone is signed up. The tournament starts and instead of a nine player table we find ourselves at two tables, a four and five. WTF? Confusion reign as some people don't realize we're split. They think the tournament is messed up again and quit. Of coarse once one person is eliminated we find ourselves combined to a single table.

10 minutes later again and this time it counts no matter what goofiness ensues. Again we find ourselves at two tables. I'm at the four person table with Smack to my right. I guess its better to have him there than to my left, but it doesn't help much as he bulldozes the table. In addition to being a bully I think he was actually hitting his hands. He takes about half to the other three players chips before the first blind level ends and the nine of us are combined to one table.

Once we are combined Smack continues to dominate the table, but a disturbing trend begins. Cookie starts hitting some monster hands, and knocking people out left and right. We're all chatting on TeamSpeak and he's obviously drunk. He's also simultaneously playing the new Star Wars MMO and complaining that the poker window keeps popping up over his game.

A typical hand involves him exclaiming confusion that it is his turn followed by him trying to figure out what his hand is, followed by him making a ridiculous bet followed by him hitting a full house or a runner runner flush on the river.

It didn't matter where you were in the hand, if you went all-in against him, you better hope for a split because that is the best you could possibly do.

Shane put up a good fight once they got to heads up, but he was behind something like 10K vs 2K and he was never able to get the lead. So in the end our worst nightmare was realized and Cookie is our current points leader.

Personally I didn't do that well. I tried making a move early on four handed and got shut down. I managed to double up later on when I got all-in preflop with Aces, but that was the only significant pot that I won. there was a lot of missed flops and folding to over the top raises that lead to an eventual fifth place finish.

Here are the standings so far.

Week 1 Results

Cookie
Shane
Smack
Rich
Me
Noah
Aaron
Archie
Jason

Points So far

Cookie: 15pts
Shane: 11pts
Smack: 8pts
Rich: 6pts
Me: 5pts
Noah: 4pts
Aaron: 3pts
Archie: 2pts
Jason: 1pts

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Poker League

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 04:08:00 +0000

What in the? Posting again? Inconceivable!

So, some guys from our "monthly" poker league decided that it would be fun to send someone to the WSOP main event. We originally thought we would get 10 people together, we'd each put in $1000, and we would play a series of tournaments, the winner of which would go to the main event, splitting the winnings amongst the group. We then decided that in the likely event that our representative went far in the WSOP that it would be two large of a time commitment so no one would actually be able to go. The first two "days" of the main event take more than a week to play out and you're not even guaranteed to be in the money. So we dialed it back a bit. We're going to send two people to one of the $1500 events instead.

We are going to use the PokerStars home game as our league tracker. They only support nine players, but that's ok since we were barely able to get nine players to agree to the settings.

So here are the players:

Me Your hero, the reason you're here and the best poker player you know. Or something like that.

Aaron The organizer of our regular home game. Decent player, but not great. In preparation for our league we got him to read Harrington's books and I think a light has gone off.

Jason Jason has never actually been able to make one of our live games, so I have no idea how he plays, however he does a fair amount of sports betting, some which involves elaborate scenarios for who/when to bet. He's definitely a gambler so I expect him to be somewhat formidable .

Noah Somewhat conservation but strong player. Most likely to fold for three straight orbits before switching gears. If he makes it past the early round of a tournament he is a favorite to win

Archie Very good live player. He's able to read opponents very well, and knows when and how much to bet. If we were playing live I'd predict him to win it all, but he's never played online. I think that will throw him.

Smack Loose aggressive player. Probably the most experienced in online tournies out of all of us. Back in the day he would have been my favorite to win, but he's since married and has a newborn and expect that to distract him enough to cost him.

Rich The young blood. I've only played with him a few times, but he definitely knows what he is doing. He's a solid player that I don't like having at my table during our live games when there is so much dead money that could be there instead.

Cookie In our live games we play two tournaments each a night. The last two that we have had Cookie has won the first match. In doing so he becomes so incredibly drunk that he has no idea he won. He then went out on the first hand of the second tourney thinking he was invincible. This has happened twice in the last three months. If he really cared he could probably be a decent player but he barely knows the rank of hands and I don't think he cares. My nightmare is that through some cruel twist of fate we end up trusting our WSOP entry to him.

Shane Shane's an OK player. I'm not terribly impressed with his poker skills, but at our last game, in both tournaments, I managed to cripple myself in hands against him, so what do I know. At the very least he's better than Cookie.

First game is in a few minutes. I intend to at least post summaries as we go. Who knows how long I'll keep it up though.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Online Home Games

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 17:22:00 +0000

PokerStars has a new "Home Game" feature that might be pretty cool. It looks like you basically set up your own private poker league on their site. It supports Real and Play money games.

This might be just what my poker group needs since we've only had two of our supposedly monthly poker games in the last two years. If we don't have to leave the house or really plan anything then maybe we can get more than seven people to show up.

They also have some sort of promotion where leagues, or league founders can win a prize to play with Danial Negreanu and other Poker Stars pros in Macau, Buenos Aires, Vancouver or EPT Snowfest at the Alpine Palace in Austria.

More details can be found here: Poker Stars Home Game.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Majority Eats!

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 02:50:00 +0000

A few years ago some coworkers and I started a website. Since then as many as nine different people spent as much as three hours a day, one day a week, two sometimes even three weeks a month to bring you Majority Eats.

What is Majority Eats you ask? Well, if you’re anything like me, you work in some sort of office type setting where on any given day a group of you will go out to lunch together. If your office mates are anything like mine, the first five to ten minutes of said lunch break are spent debating about where to go. Well argue no longer. Majority Eats solves that problem. It also solves the problem of where to go to watch the game, what bars to hit on Friday night, and where to go for girl’s night out, or anything else that involves deciding on where to eat.

To use the site, all you have to do is register, create a group (and you can create multiple groups for different groups of friends) and invite your group members. Then you can use the google maps search we have built in to find your restaurants and start voting. By default a daily Lunch event will automatically be created for you, but you can also add future events and set a time when the polls close. You can also opt to get notifications when a new event is scheduled for a vote, or when the voting period is almost over.

Let democracy prevail and end your lunchtime arguments once and for all.
We are now live, so sign up, invite your coworkers, try it out and let us know what you think. Also keep your fingers crossed that our potentially tens of new visitors don’t crash the server. Yes tens. I’m pretty sure that’s all we can handle.

Even if you don’t use the site, you would help us out if you at least visited and clicked the Like button for it.
http://www.majorityeats.com

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Sen Reid to Introduce Online Poker Legalization Bill?

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 01:23:00 +0000

There's a story on the Wall Street Journal about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) potentially introducing a bill that would legalize online poker. Read the story for more details.

Some notes and thoughts:

I don't foresee this passing anytime soon. They are currently in a lame duck session of congress, with republicans to control the house shortly and republicans in the senate digging in their heels in regards to passing any legislation, let alone something that they've been against for so long.

Its interesting that the Nevada casinos seem to be behind this. I was under the impression that they were against online gambling and felt it might dilute their brand. Why fly all the way to Vegas when you can gamble from the comfort of your living room? (Because Vegas is awesome, that's why.)

The article mentions that there may be a rider that only established casinos (B & M I assume) to operate online for the first two years. The cynic in me says this is because those casinos helped him survive a close election a month ago and this is payback. Although since these casinos don't already have poker software I would think they might struggle to compete with existing sites like FullTilt and PokerStars.

I wonder if Harrahs or some other casino would buy or partner with an existing site to get their player base? FullTilt poker brought to you by Harrahs, or MGM Online Poker powered by PokerStars? I wonder how much money it would take for the existing sites to make that deal. If the commissions I earn on the few referrals I've made are any indication, those site's aren't exactly in need of a lot of cash. Speaking of which, have you tried FullTilt or PokerStars recently? You should. You should also use bonus code POKERWORDS or click on the links above.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Vegas Baby

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 00:20:00 +0000

So, I got back from Las Vegas a few days ago. Just it time for my semi-annual blog post.

First off, let me say that Sports Betting sucks. It makes games that I would normally enjoy stressful because not only does my team need to win, they have to do it by +X points. I put a few wagers down on college games. I not big into college football, but I was leaving Sunday before the NFL games finish so it would have to do.

I $100 on my Illini -7 vs Northern Ill. Northern Ill is decent for a directional school, the Illini are usually in the bottom of the Big 10, but this was a game they should have easily won by more than 7. They won by 6 after giving up a field goal in the last minute of the game. So rather than being happy because Illinois gets a rare win, I'm pissed because I'm out $100.

I then put $40 on Michigan State -3.5 over Notre Dame because fuck Notre Dame. Of coarse MSU only wins by 3, so again I'm happy they lost, but pissed because I'm out more cash. Finally sticking with my Big 10, I took Iowa over Arizona in a pickem. I thought Iowa was supposed to be in the national championship conversation so they should at least be able to beat Arizona, even on the road. Yeah, Not so much. I also tried a three team parlay with Illinois, Nebraska and Iowa. Nebraska is the only team that held up its end of the bargain. I knew I should have bet on them too.

Ok enough bitching. On to the good stuff. Poker.

I actually played some poker for the first time in months. Friday afternoon I tried out Caesar's $70 NL Holdem tournament. About 50-60 people played, I don't remember exactly. I ended up busting out around 25-30, but I had blast. I didn't realize how much I miss playing cards.

The people in the tournament were not good. It was frustrating that I didn't do very well. I started off the tournament being loose and aggressive and stealing a lot of pots that no seemed all that interested in. There weren't any players at my table that I was scared of, just a lot of loose passive calling stations.

I got into trouble with a K7 or K something and a weak kicker. I paired the king on the flop, but there were two hearts on the board. A little worried about the flush draw I tried to chase people out, but got one caller. A third heart came on the turn and again he called my bet. We checked down the river and he had a king with a better kicker.

Shortly after that, I had pocket 7s and one caller. The turn paired the board with a king. The river paired the board with a 9 and counterfeited my hand, forcing me to fold to his weak bet.

Shortly thereafter I was in all-in or nothing mode. I hung on for a while, picking up a blind here and there, but ultimately got caught and that was that. Like I said I had blast playing, but I was still pretty frustrated with the result. I felt like if I had played a little tighter and smarter I could have easily won that thing. So I decided to try again Saturday.

The Saturday noon tourney cost a little more at $85, but you got $T7500 chips to start instead of $3500 as the day before.

I was intentionally going to play this tourney a lot tighter than the day before, figuring that with the extra chips I could afford to wait for a big hand to take advantage of. No need to put my self at risk unnecessarily. The cards and the people at my table helped out with this strategy quite a bit.

For almost the entire tournament, no matter which table I was moved to there was a loose aggressive player or sometimes two with a big chip stack immediately to my left. For most of the tournament I was somewhat afraid to raise pre-flop because I expected a call and didn't want to have to play for a big pot without a premium hand. Also most of the players in this tournament seemed to be better than those who played the previous day.

Did I also mention that my cards were terrible? The ante's kicked after the first break at level 4. Normally I would have loved that because I think I'm usually better than the average player at stealing pots pre-flop. Most players don't take the ante's into account so stealing a pot becomes much more profitable.

I couldn't get a hand. I would decide that I need to steal a pot pre-flop and then not be able to pull the trigger because I would have a terrible hand, or someone else would put in a big bet.

I spent most of the tourney more or less within a big blind of whatever the average chip count was at the time. There was a big tourney board that listed the blinds, and players remaining, and average chip stack and I was always right there in the middle. I would fold for a few orbits, then steal some blinds, then fold for an orbit, then win a pot with a continuation bet on the flop. I won just enough to keep me in the game, but nothing more.

When we got down to three tables, I think my luck started to change. I got a pair of aces and had a short stack go all-in ahead of me. That gave me enough chips to move into more of a bully role, and I was finally able to start playing more aggressively and push people off hands.

The problem with a noon tournament is that I didn't really eat before hand. I had a chocolate chip muffin and a coffee for breakfast, but that was it. I don't think the Red Bulls and Vodkas I was drinking were very nutritious. There was a nearby restaurant that catered to the poker room, but I didn't really want to be eating while playing. During the third break I went to looking for one of the convenience store like shops to grab a candy bar or something, but I got a little lost in the casino and by the time I found the place the break was almost up. So I had to wait until the next break. By the end of the tournament, in addition to my small breakfast I had only eaten a nutra grain bar and a snickers bar and about 10 Red Bull and Vodkas. The diet of true athlete.

When we combined down to two tables, I again got moved immediately in front of the two biggest stacks at the table. The guy to my left seemed like a pretty solid player from the few hands I had played against him at an earlier table. The girl to his left was the chip leader.

I got a second pair of aces, and again had someone go all-in ahead of me, moving me into second place at the table, with most people being pretty short stacked. I got a little reckless and called an all in with KT or something weak like that. I had tried to steal a medium/small stack's blind and when he pushed back I assumed it was only out of desperation. He had AT, and knocked me back to the pack. I was again at the point where one wrong move would knock me out of the tournament, and after almost four hours of play, having nothing to show would have sucked. That thought was certainly in the back of my mind.

I was almost upset when I got AQ on the button. I was missing the crappy hands I got in the beginning of the tourney that were easy folds. I needed some other people to go out to get my confidence back up a bit. I was not to thrilled when the guy to my right called, and especially worried when I completely missed the flop. Alls well that ends well though as I made a large continuation bet and after thinking for way too long he folds.

I'm back into a comfortable chip count.

A few hands later I get wired eights and make a standard raise. The guy to my right calls, saying it was the last time I would he was going to do that, or something to that effect. The flop is glorious. K84. I make a small bet and he pushes all in. I insta-call and suddenly I'm the chip leader at the table.

Things were pretty undramatic from my point of view from that point on. We condensed down to the final table and two people went out rather quickly to the tournament chip leader. When I got to the table he probably had double my chips. after knocking out two people I think he had more chips than the rest of us combined. He was also looking and acting very stressed and brain fried.

The tourney paid seven, so when we got down to 8 someone suggested that we all chip in $5 for the bubble so they don't leave completely empty handed. It ended up being the girl who was two to my left from the previous table. Her formerly mosterous chips stack had slowly dwindled down to nothing. I don't know how she got that many chips to start with, but she played too tight and folded to easily to stick around at those blind/ante levels.

So I made the money, and was in pretty good shape to finish near the top.

And then over the coarse of like seven hands, the chip leader eliminated four more players. And just like that we were down to three. I didn't need to worry about the short stacks sticking around and doubling each other up. They kept pushing in and he kept getting cards.

He says the third place guy and I should chop and just let him win. Its not fair how good cards have been. I think was being honest, not trying to be a d-bag. I told him I'd just let him eliminate the other guy and then take my chances heads up.

One or two hands into three way action I get QQ and the short stack pushes all in with a AJ or AT, a high ace. Fortunately the big stack folds, and the other guy doesn't hit his ace, so were heads up.

I jokingly ask if he wants a 50/50 chop. He has more physical chips than I do, and his are the orange $T10,000 chips while mine are mostly the blue $T5000 or white $T1000. For some reason, he agrees, as long as he gets an extra $50. 2nd paid a little less than $800 and first a little more that $1300. a 50/50 split came down to $1080 each, so we just rounded down so I got $1000 and he got the rest. It was about $50 less than we had agreed to, but it made the math easy and I still felt like I was getting a steal. I'd like to think that I could have taken him heads up, but for an extra $250 or so, why take the risk. Plus its nice to say I won a grand playing poker.

I think I actually left Vegas with more cash than I started with, even taking into account all of the fancy restaurants that we went to, and the Cirque-du-Solei show we say. All in all. Good trip.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

WSOP Fantasy Poker

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Tue, 11 May 2010 23:25:00 +0000

The World Series of Poker is just around the corner and FullTilt is doing their Fantasy Poker League again. I think I've missed it for the past year or two, but once upon a time when I did participate I remember it being fun. I also won a free Hat and entry into some free rolls.

The way it works is you pick five A, B and C players. You get points equal to the dollars won by your players. Actually you get 3x for A players 2x for B and 3x for C. Whoever wins the most fantasy points for an event wins prizes and/or free roll entries. Plus there is usually a bigger prize for people who accumulate the most points for the entire WSOP season.

Its free so what do you have to lose?

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Full Tilt Bonus

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:39:00 +0000

At the risk of turning this blog into a permanent FullTilt ad, I just wanted to let you know that if you have a FullTilt account there should be a $50 bonus ready for you to claim. Just log on and go to the requests menu to claim your bonus. I think you have until March 15th to claim it and then a month after you claim it to earn it. It gets released in $5 increments. You relace $.06 per Full Tilt Point earned. It took me about 350 hands at $.25/.50 to work off $5, but those of you that play at higher stakes, or during happy hour should have no problem.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Biggest Pot Ever

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 20:22:00 +0000

I won my biggest pot ever this morning. Keep in mind, that's not really saying much since I almost never play ring games, especially no limit, and when I do, I play at about as low stakes as I can find. Still, its nice to hit something big every once in a while.

I'm still loving Rush Poker. Either I'm getting extremely lucky, or its easy money, or some combination of those two. I moved up from my $.5/.10 all the way to $.25/.50, where the big money is.

The caliber of play wasn't noticeably different. I did find that I was recognizing a few of the players this time around, those with odd names, or huge chip stakes, so I guess you could theoretically try to build an image, but it seems like it wouldn't be worth the effort.

I did notice couple of potential leaks in my game. I checked the best hand on the river on multiple occasions. It makes me nervous when my pre-flop raise gets called, and I get check called to the river. Especially when I only have a mediocre hand. I'm content to check it down at that point instead of risking a check-raise that I would potentially struggle to call. On the flip side, there were a number of hands where my opponent raised me ridiculous amounts when I had pretty good hands, but not good enough to risk calling that type of raise. I don't know what I can do to prevent that situation, other than firing back every once in a while. The problem is, firing back doesn't help because next hand no one will know me, and they may actually have the hand they are representing.

So I know hand replays are probably getting old, but like I said at the top, this was my biggest pot ever so I'm going to go back through it. Feel free to skip ahead.

In the small blind I get dealt Aces, and better yet the player under the gun raises to 3.5BB That means I can just call and disguise my hand a bit. Then the guy one from the button calls. I'm tempted to slow play here, but decide to bump it up to $4.00 hoping one of them will fold. Slow playing aces with multiple players is a great way to get them cracked. In retrospect, I probably should have gone higher if I wanted them to fold, but $4.00 seems like a lot preflop in a 50 cent game. At the very least they should be on the defensive. Both call.

The flop is Qs 2s 8c. Not bad. I could do without the flush draw, but I'm almost certainly ahead at this point. A set of queens is a concern, but I don't think I have to worry about it. I be $8, 2/3 of the pot and both call. Curious. That $8 is more than most hands have in a pot at showdown.

The turn is 7s. Potentially a very bad card. If one of them just hit a flush I'm in trouble. I know if I check here I'm going to have to fold to any bet so I bet $15, less than half the pot, but I large amount for these stakes. UTG calls, and the guy to my right puts his last $6 in. There's now about $72 in the pot. I'm worried about the flush, but I'm still on a nut flush draw and I don't buy that either of them have it. knowing neither of them have the ace makes it hard for me to believe that they've been chasing a flush.

The river is a glorious 6s giving me the nut flush. I bet $25 which puts UTG all in. He calls and the $115.95 pot gets pushed my way. UTG has AQo, no spades so he chased that hand the whole way with top pair top kicker against two players, one of whom was betting fairly aggressively. The guy to my right had KJs, so I ended up getting lucky on the river. I wonder if he had more chips if he would have raised me on the turn. I also wonder what it would have taken to get him out of the hand on the flop.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Rush Poker Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 01:58:00 +0000

Yes three posts in a row about the same thing. But I probably didn't even have three posts all of last year, so you should take what you can get.

I'm really enjoying rush poker. I hope whoever came up with this at FullTilt got a promotion because its genius and they stand to make a ton of money on it.

I played 150 hands at the micro limits in about half an hour and doubled my buy in. Some more notes:

Stealing blinds is easy. People seem much less willing to defend their blinds when a better hand is milliseconds away. (small sample size, super low stakes, yadda yadda)
I always make sure that my preflop raise is the same amount, whether I have aces, or 9Ts, or I'm on a bluff so as not to give any indication of what I have. There's not really a point in doing that in Rush because no one will remember what your normal raise is. Maybe try to squeeze in a bigger raise with your super premium hands.
One of my weaknesses as a player is that I don't pay attention to my opponents as much as I should. I'll notice certain players, but in general I get distracted by other things than hands I'm not in. The Rush poker format neutralizes that by randomizing your opponent, and I think my skills against a random opponent are better than average.
I'm playing poker somewhat regularly again. Woot. Although Mass Effect 2 comes out tomorrow so this might be a short lived journey back into the poker world.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Rush Poker Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 18:48:00 +0000

Hey wow two posts in one day! See the post below for an explanation of rush poker.

So I tried a little rush poker. I played less than half an hour at the $0.05/$0.10 table. Big money I know. In that time I played 110 hands playing a single table. Its intense. You fold and split seconds later the action is back on you. Here's some observations from my first exposure.

Its fast. The average hands per hour at a rush table was around 275 compared to 80 at a normal table.
I couldn't figure out how to leave a table because it won't let you stand up while you're in a hand, and as soon as you fold you're in another hand. (check the sit out next hand box, then stand up)
You can't build an image. There's not really a point in trying to build an image, or play sneaky or opposite what you were playing because you're not going to be at the table with these people next hand.
Play is tighter. I'm used to micro limit tables having more people see the flop than not. If you can exchange your rags, or even your somewhat playable cards for a new hand immediately why waste time with garbage?
Its fast.
Sometimes I miss watching a hand to completion. You know those hands where you kind of want to stay in, but know you shouldn't? And you fold, but want to stick around to see what the other players have? You can't. As soon as you fold you're off to a new hand and you don't get to see what happened in the one you just left. I think you can go back and look at the hand history, but by the time you do three or four more hands have completed and you don't remember what you were looking for anyway.
Its fast. Did I mention its fast? There were some pros playing at the $0.50/$1 tables four tabling. I have no idea how they can do that.
If I remember correctly, they have an iron man promotion that rewards you for getting X number of FullTilt points each day in a month. It wouldn't take long to get there playing Rush style.
I actually made a profit. I more than doubled my $10 investment. That in itself is a miracle as I am not a good cash game player. I think the tighter play, both for me and my opponents contributed to that. Plus the small sample size and quitting while I'm ahead thing.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Rush Poker

noreply@blogger.com (ZeRat11) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 17:42:00 +0000

FullTilt poker has invented a new poker format. They're calling it Rush Poker.

The concept is this: Everyone joins into a big rush poker game. This is a multi-table ring game. As soon as you fold a hand you are taken to a brand new table and dealt a new hand. So if you know you are going to fold pre-flop you don't have to wait until the showdown to play another hand. Its the ADD player's dream come true.

In case you are wondering, they've put safeguards in so that even though you are at a new table because you hit the fold checkbox, no one at your original table knows it until the action reaches you. They also made it so you can't show up at a new table with any of the same players that are still in the hand of your old table, and if you are multi-tabling, you can't end up at a table with yourself. You can see all of the details on the FAQ page.

This sounds like a great idea from FullTilt's perspective. I would guess that players participating in this type of poker are going to play 5 times as many hands in the same amount of time, resulting in that much more rake for the site.

Its also good for the short attention span players that get bored waiting for hands that they aren't in to finish. The only problem I see is that it will almost be impossible to get a read on any of the players since you only see them for a hand, and often times wont' see the completion of that hand. Honestly, that probably won't matter much for me, because I tend to get bored and do other things like surf the interwebs instead of watching the hand and trying to evaluate my opponents. That being said, there are some players whose style I will make note of and adjust my play accordingly.

The other thing that might be nice is that it should cut down on the trash talking at the table. The asshole who has to insult everyone at the table for their inferior play isn't going to have an audience for more that a minute.

All in all, its an interesting concept. I don't really play much online anymore especially cash games, but if I happen to play in the near future, I think I'll check this out.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com